The Pivot That Earned 10,000 Survey Responses

When a federal government shutdown halted pay for hundreds of thousands of service members in October 2025, military families had far bigger concerns than filling out a survey — even one built to shape the programs and policies they depend on.

Reingold led the full marketing strategy for MFAN’s biennial research effort. Despite a month of lost promotional time and a community under profound financial stress, we garnered 10,000 survey responses. What made the difference wasn’t pushing harder. It was switching strategies at the right moment — keeping MFAN a trusted resource for the community it serves.

MFAN fields the nation’s largest independent research effort on military family life. The findings directly shape programs and policies that affect service members and their families. For the 2025 cycle, Reingold was brought in to lead the full promotional marketing strategy. Then, the week the survey was set to launch, the federal government shut down.

Reingold started with a full-funnel, multi-channel campaign built around a full rebrand. The longstanding Military Family Support Programming Survey became Military Family 360, a name designed to signal the scope and national significance of the effort. That work spanned every channel: creative, website development, digital advertising, organic social, email marketing, earned media, an ambassador program, and analytics.

But one day before the survey launch event, the federal government shut down. The campaign was at an immediate crossroads. Service members were going without pay. Military households were under financial strain. Heightened distrust of government-affiliated organizations was surfacing in real time.

Rather than push forward with survey promotion, we shifted focus entirely to mission delivery — sharing resources, amplifying support, and showing up for the community MFAN exists to serve. The decision cost the campaign roughly a month of promotional runway. It preserved something worth more.

When the shutdown lifted, we didn’t simply pick up where we left off. Rather than increase paid pressure, we leaned further into peer-to-peer promotion. We expanded reach through trusted community partners and ambassadors, reinforcing one consistent message: Military Family 360 is independent, confidential, and built to benefit them. We updated messaging in real time to reflect what families had just lived through. And we activated an audience that had grown quietly during the shutdown — people who had come to MFAN for support and stayed — who became some of the most engaged participants in the campaign’s final stretch.

Despite a shortened promotional window and a community navigating real-world hardship, the campaign reached its goal: 10,000+ completed surveys gathered from military-connected audiences across the country.

The Military Family 360 findings now inform programs and policies grounded in the current, unfiltered experiences of military families. And MFAN emerged from one of the most difficult campaign environments with its community reputation not just intact, but strengthened.